


like we're still dead

by kingsnow (bravegentlestrong)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Foreplay, Jon Snow/Alayne Stone - Freeform, implied past baelish/sansa dubcon, jon pov, jon thinks sansa is alayne, sansa thinks she's alayne, sex wearing only stark furs, threatening littlefinger with bodily harm, trauma induced memory loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravegentlestrong/pseuds/kingsnow
Summary: After the war, the King in the North travels to the Vale and takes a wife.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zip001](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zip001/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Thawing of Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733991) by [Jade_Masquerade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade). 



> dedicated to zip00198704 for the first round of the jonsaexchange. I tried to include as many of the things you said you liked in the fic: wistful tenderness, a bit of angst, fierceness, false identity and [very light] smut.

* * *

 

Jon is weary from travel when he arrives in the Eyrie. He is more weary still of the man he’d come to meet. Jon had come to rely on Ser Davos to conduct his diplomatic affairs, but he is on his own with this. Three times he has cheated death and been brought back with dark magic but he cannot run away from Lord Baelish’s daughter. The King in the North must do his duty, for though the war had been won Spring was still just a dream. His people needed to eat and the bounty of the Vale would be his if he took the daughter of its Lord Protector to wed.

The journey may have been long, but he had not thought much of the maid that was to be his queen. Traversing the vast country on horseback and taking in his devastated kingdom he thought only of how long it would take to rebuild.

So he is surprised when her face stirs something in him. She is a ghost of something. Of what, he cannot say. Death has eaten away at the memories he’d held closest to his heart until all that was left inside him was the war. 

“Have we met?” he asks her.

“I don’t know how that would be possible,” her father says.

But there is something in Lord Baelish’s eyes that Jon does not trust, so he turns again to Alayne.

“You’ve never been to the North? Before the war?”

Alayne shakes her head and gives him the sweetest of smiles.

“Maybe in another life.”

 

* * *

 

“My King,” Alayne says when he finds her in the courtyard, bending her knees to curtsy.

The corners of her eyes crease when she smiles but Jon can never tell what is going on behind them. He gulps down air. “There’s no need for such formality. You’re not my subject yet.”

“But I’ll be yours soon enough.”

He is not skilled with words or flirting, and he finds himself at a loss once again, wanting to impress her. Or at least not to disappoint her. He remembers no women, though Sam had told him there had been one before. Most of the girls who fought in the war had been wights, and love had seemed such a small thing when he was trying to balance the fate of humanity on his shoulders.

“I meant to give you the royal decree,” he says when he remembers the reason he’d invented to seek her out. “Your legitimization.”

Jon extends his hand to pass her the parchment, but she waves it away.

“I have no desire to bear any name but yours,” she says. At first he wonders if this too is flirtation but her face is suddenly solemn. “I’m a Stone, not a Baelish.”

“Your father seemed quite keen,” he manages, his brow furrowed in consternation.

“Do you take offence to the prospect of a bastard queen?” she asks, her jaw set.

“Of course not.”

Alayne straightens her spine and exhales softly. It only takes a moment before that same smile comes across her face once more. She links her arm through his, “shall we take a turn around the Godswood, then? I’m getting cold just standing here.”

 

* * *

 

At their wedding feast, Alayne makes the rounds between tables of guests. She has many friends, but Mya and Myranda were the closest to her heart. In turn, each of them had given him strict warnings on how he was to treat his wife.  Jon watches her embracing Mya as he sits beside her father at the head table. Lord Baelish talks to him at length, but he is a slimy creature and Jon gives little more than perfunctory grunts. He only has eyes for Alayne.

She throws her head back and laughs. She whispers in her friends’ ears with a wild look in her eye. Not for the first time he wonders what she’s thinking. He itches to be entrusted with her secrets.

When she makes her way back to the table she kisses him on the cheek as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. He can smell the wine on her breath. He wonders what her mouth tastes like.

Everything had been such a struggle before. He hadn’t quite known how heavy everything was until his troubles began to be lifted. Alayne laughs and takes his hand in hers under the table and for the first time in ages he doesn’t feel tired.

“Dance with me,” she whispers in his ear, her lips grazing his jaw.

“I’m a little out of practice,” he says, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

“I can teach you.”

“It’s a tempting offer,” he starts, and before he can refuse once more she takes him by the hand and pulls from his seat to the dance floor. When she looks back at him, biting her bottom lip as she grins, he knows there is little he will be able to refuse his new bride.

There isn’t much to it. She leads and he follows along, some of it coming back to him. A sister had taught him once, one of his sisters. Arya, he thinks, and the thought of her fills him with warmth. No. Not Arya. Sansa.

“My friend Myranda says men make love like they dance,” Alayne says, bringing him back to the present.

He swallows. Jon knows his bride is well into her cups, but still he doesn’t know how to respond. How does one talk to a lady? How does one talk to their wife? “Oh?” 

“But my other friend, and she knows more about these things, she said men make love like they fight.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Alayne says, pulling back slightly to look him dead in the eye. Her voice is different now, coquettish rather than confident though she does not stumble over her words. “I suppose I’ll find out soon.”

Jon’s jaw twitches. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen me fight, my lady.”

He can feel Alayne’s breath on his neck as she sighs and gives him a dreamy look.

“No, but I’ve heard the songs. I knew you’d come for me.”

There is something haunting about the way she says it, but her face is nothing but serene. 

 

* * *

 

Despite Alayne’s father’s insistence, there is no proper bedding. Lord Baelish seemed a little too excited about the prospect of helping to undress his daughter. “No man will touch my wife except me, Lord Baelish,” Jon says, too irritated by the man to remember he is necessary to rebuild the North. “Not unless he wants a broken jaw.”

When they are alone, Alayne comes to him first. Her kisses are innocent but he feels like he has waited years to finally taste her, and so his tongue is rough when he slides it into her mouth. 

He wonders if he was too rough, but when he pulls away she is grinning. He’s grown very fond of her smiles. She is generous with them.  

She leans in again and takes her upper lip between his teeth and she sighs against him. He thinks he could spend hours doing just this, feeling her go slack in his arms as he kisses her.

He starts to toy with the lacing of her corset, but he struggles with the mechanics of her dress. 

“Let me undress for you,” she says, pushing him back to her bed. He sits dutifully on and watches. He finds it much more enjoyable than watching on as a crowd undressed her while he was helpless to stop them. 

She’s beautiful. Standing naked before him, she is vulnerable but brave. He is wonderstruck, and he drops to his knees at her feet.

“What are you? Oh. _Oh.”_

Her hands run through his long hair, and she pulls hard when she peaks. He likes the pain. He likes the taste of her. He likes feeling her come against his tongue.

 

* * *

 

“Was that alright?” Jon mumbles to her afterwards, when their bodies are tangled together under thick furs. He’d gotten a little carried away.

“It was lovely.”

“There wasn’t any… pain?”

“No,” she says softly.

He is too tired to speak but she doesn’t seem to mind. The short silences that fall between them are surprisingly comfortable for how little time they’ve spent together.

Jon runs his hand through her hair and kisses the top of her head. It is easy. He can’t remember how he’d ever fallen asleep without her naked body pressed against his. He hadn’t dreamt at all since his first death but there’s something dreamlike about the way she plays with the hair on his chest.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, he reaches for her but her side of the bed is empty. He opens his eyes and she is gone. He can hear a faint noise. Naked, he follows the sound and realizes his wife is singing. Her voice is soft and sweet and fills him with nostalgia. 

He pushes open the door to the adjoining chamber to find Alayne in the bath. She is something to behold, one leg draped over the tub, the ends of her long hair immersed in the water.

And then he realizes. She’s singing about him. He can’t help but laugh. 

She jumps at the sound. She glances over at him and grumbles, “is something funny, your grace?”

“It’s funny how you make it bearable.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I can’t usually stand to listen to it. The ‘song of ice and fire’. It seems so silly. But it sounds nice when you sing it.”

He glances down at her and his mouth goes dry. She had been beautiful in the candlelight, but this is different. Natural light shines down on her, illuminating her body. He can see everything. 

"Well, I like the song,” she says. She slides herself back and exposes her breasts to the air. He can’t help but stare, losing track of what they were talking about. He wants nothing more than to feel her weight on top of him, to feel her clench down around his cock. He grows hard at the thought.

“Are you going to join me?” she asks. When he looks up to her eyes he sees her looking at him with the same hunger.

 

* * *

 

“You mean to leave me here?” Alayne asks, sounding much younger than her eighteen years.

“Your father thought it best.”

“My father thought it best,” she repeats in disbelief. She looks up at him with watery eyes. “And you agreed?”

“This was always the arrangement.”

“No. I will not stay behind,” Alayne says, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. 

“I’m meant to make a tour of the north. It’ll be months before I’m home. Your father thought you’d prefer to stay with him,” he says, though he doesn’t know why he’s arguing for her father. He knows he’d prefer her to be keeping him company on the journey and warming his bed at night.

She juts out her chin. “I am your wife. Your queen. I belong at your side.”

Jon furrows his brow. He’d assumed Baelish told her. He can’t stand to see her like this, but it really is for the best. “My castle is in ruins. The North is an unforgiving place, my lady. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed when you see it.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen worse,” Alayne says. “I have _survived_ worse. I’m not some high lady who needs to be fed lemoncakes and be doted on…” Though her voice wavers, she has set her jaw. “Take me home with you.”

He wonders how he could have broken her heart, having met her not even a fortnight before. She had been wild and alive but he realizes now that she has a tender heart and he must be gentle with it. He’s not good at this, he’s bound to fumble, but he will try.

He nods. 

“Aye, my lady. As you command.”

 

When Jon finally made his way to their guest chambers after a long, meandering and ultimately pointless discussion with their host, he finds his wife waiting for him. The Stark cloak was draped around her shoulders, white and lined with fur. The same one he’d claimed her with at their wedding. She is wearing nothing else. He groans as blood rushes to his cock. 

“I was waiting a long time,” she says, as he moves towards her. 

He kisses her urgently, a hand moving to take a breast in hand. He rubs his thumb against her nipple, hard from the cold air. Alayne puts her hand over his and brings it in between her legs. She is wet, and he realizes what she’d been doing as he’d discussed modern accounting practices with the Cerwyn’s steward. He is painfully hard. She grinds against his hand and he pushes two fingers into her.

“I’ve already taken care of myself. Because you kept me waiting.” 

“If only I weren’t a king.”

Alayne takes his hand once more and brings it to her mouth. She sucks on the fingers that are still wet from her. Her tongue is soft against his skin. He groans once more. 

“How can I make it up to you?”

“I want to watch you take off your clothes,” she says when she pulls his fingers from her mouth.

He nods, and eagerly begins pulling off his jerkin, letting it fall to the floor before he loosens his shirt.

“Jon?”

“Hmmm?”

“Keep your fur on. It’s cold and…” her eyes ran down to his exposed abdomen, “it looks good on you.”

He does as he’s bid. 

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, her fingers trace the scars on his chest. She doesn’t ask, she’s heard the stories. Everyone has. 

“I’m glad you came back from the dead,” she says. “I’m glad I got to meet Jon Stark.”

“I’m glad I got to meet _Alayne_ Stark.”

She grins. “I’m glad to _be_  a Stark.”

“Me too,” he says before it hits him the same way it always did. He’d got what he’d always wanted. He was a Stark, Lord of Winterfell. But only because they were all dead. He’d never get to see any of them again, and that had been the whole point. To be one of them, to belong.

Somehow Alayne can sense it, for her voice is tender now. “Do you miss them?”

What can he say? Once he’d had a family. He can barely remember them now, though gods know he tries. There was a sister who used to chase him around the castle, who was always getting into trouble. A sister he’d died for. He remembers his little brother’s face best. Rickon. Whose body he’d been presented with just before his coronation. That was all that came to him when he thought of his brother, dead eyes and a lifeless corpse.

“No,” he says. “That’s the worst part. I still miss them. But I just… I only know what people tell me. And sometimes that feels like a real memory, but I’m not sure if it is. And there’s whispers sometimes, that they’re not really dead. But it’s been so long… I just… I would do anything to see them again.”

He would have done anything for them, though he scarcely remembered why he loved them. The love was all that remained. He would happily give his life to bring any of them home. He had saved his people, but he couldn’t save the ones he loved most.

Alayne’s tears are wet against his chest. 

“Why are you crying?” he asks, his voice soft. He hadn’t meant to make her sad. She made him so happy, he wanted to do the same for her.

"You saved me.”

He furrows his brow. “From what?”

“I was beginning to think I would die there.”

“Where?”

“With him.”

“In the Vale?” he asks. She wasn’t making sense.

“You never said anything,” Alayne says, her voice faltering. “About… about me not being a maid.”

Jon thinks back to their wedding night. He hadn’t thought on it then, perhaps he hadn’t wanted to realize. She hadn’t bled, she hadn’t felt any pain. Now, with her father hundreds of leagues away, it sinks in. Jon grinds his teeth thinking about how her father’s eyes had raked over his daughter’s body when he’d tried to call for the bedding ceremony. The disappointment when Jon told him no other man would ever touch her again.

“I wasn’t a maid either,” he somehow manages, when all he could think is  _I’ll kill him_ and his blood begins to boil.

Through her tears, Alayne laughs and the sound of it pulls him out of his own head. “You won’t be that kind of father.”

“No,” Jon says. 

And suddenly he feels it. The enormity of it – it was duty, yes, but he loved her, he did. He loved her because of duty and in spite of it. Something about her was so familiar, so easy to love. It was like he’d known her all his life. And he’d love her for the rest of it if she let him.

* * *

 

Just before they reach Winterfell, Alayne stops. Try as he might, Jon cannot read her expression. He nods to his guard to tell them to go on without them. They sit astride their horses in silence for a long time before she comes out of her daze. He should think it odd, he knows, but he doesn’t. 

He thinks she’s going to say something about it’s state. It’s never recovered from being burned. Instead she looks at him and says, “I think we’ll be happy here.”

Jon smiles and looks at the ground. “Let’s go home,” he says. 

He’d never felt like a hero before, no matter how many songs were written in his honour, no matter how many crowds cheered his name. But he does now, bringing her home. 

 _You saved me_ , she’d said. _You saved me._

Everyone is there to greet them in the courtyard. Jon drops to his knees and Ghost runs to him. Ghost licks his face and Jon grins. “I missed you, boy.”

Before Jon can turn to Alayne to introduce her, Ghost pushes past him and nuzzles his face against Alayne’s stomach. Alayne scratches Ghost behind the ear. She isn’t afraid of him, and he loves her at first sight.

“Do you think he can smell it?” she asks.

“Smell what?”

“The baby.”

_The baby._

She looks away from him, consumed with his direwolf. Ghost is as taken with her as he is, and the sight of them hits him hard in the chest. After everything, could it really be this simple?

* * *

 

Jon is surprised to find Alayne in the godswood. He hadn’t thought he would find her kneeling under the heart tree, for his southron wife must keep the new gods if she kept any.

When she turns to face him, he can’t help but think she might be an appirition. He has known her many moons now, but he is suddenly awestruck once more by her beauty. In this light her skin was as white as the bark of the weirwood, and her hair seemed almost as red as it's leaves. 

“I hadn’t meant to interrupt, my lady. I’ll leave you to your prayers.”

She shakes her head and stands up. “No, I was almost done anyway. I’ll leave you to it.”

As he watches her leave something shifts in his mind.

 _You saved me_ , she’d said, _you saved me._

How had he forgotten her? 

 _You didn’t,_ he thinks. It had been on the tip of his tongue the entire time, a part of him had always known. **  
**

“Sansa,” he calls after her.

But she doesn’t turn around. He calls again, his voice louder this time. Just when she is almost out of sight, she looks over her shoulder, her forehead creased in confusion.

When he looks at her now he wonders if he had been mistaken. Past the clearing, in the dark of the dense forest she looks herself once more.

“My name is Alayne,” she says.

 _Of course it is_ , he thinks. “I know, I’m sorry,” he says, “I just–”

 _I saw a ghost._ He stops cold when he sees there are tears welling in her eyes. Suddenly it feels bitterly cold. A shudder passes through him. _No,_  he thinks, _I am the ghost._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally a one shot, and then I extended it to three chapters. However, I took those chapters down in March because many people were confused by my writing style about what happened. The whole thing was meant to be open-ended, but not to the point that people were confused. So I’ve revised this fic extensively and am reposting now. There’s about 2k words of new content as well as some stuff taken out. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

“The King in the North will be calling on us in a fortnight,” Alayne’s father told her at breakfast on a snowy morning in late winter.  
  
Alayne knew she had to be careful. Sometimes when Alayne allowed herself to dream she imagined she was a princess, destined to be queen one day. She imagined letting her hair down and the King in the North scaling the mountainside to retrieve her from the Eyrie and crowning her his queen. His song had echoed through the Vale and Sansa knew it by heart now. The Vale was largely unaffected by the war that had ravaged the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, and her father liked to hold balls that showed everyone just how wealthy they were. The singers always sang the Song of Ice and Fire, and when Sansa danced to it she could feel her father’s eyes upon her more keenly than ever.

In her mind’s eye Jon Snow was tall and handsome and he wore the crown of winter upon a hair of thick black curls. She imagined he was as brave as the singer’s said, and just as comely, but though the song said he could dance as good as any man, Alayne wondered if that was true. She could picture him taking her in his arms and taking her around the dance floor, but she doubted a man of the night’s watch was as good at the courtly arts as they made him seem.

  
She might’ve worried that she thought too much of the King in the North, but she was not alone in fantasizing about their saviour. And besides, all little girls like to play come in my castle, bastard girls especially. She was certainly too old to fall for such fancies now.   
      
“The king in the North,” she tried the words out in her mouth. “Why? What does he want of us?”   
  
“Food,” her father said with a smile.   
  
The Vale had long stayed out of the politics that had divided the rest of the realm. But it seemed the rest of them had all fought to exhaustion, and now the long wars that plagued Westeros were over. Her father was stingy with the grain supply. He’d hoarded many successful crops and after failed and burned harvests, was not letting it go to the rest of the continent cheaply.   
  
“Can he afford it?” Alayne asked. She didn’t know why, but she was nervous for the King in the North. Once her father had told her they’d go there after the war, but he hadn’t said anything about in such a long time. She had simply gotten attached to the idea of the North, and of the legendary castle at the centre of it too. She didn’t want the Northerners to starve, least of all the prince that was promised. “They saved us all, father. Remember that in your negotiations.”   
  
Alayne had kept her father happy enough these past few years with gentle caresses and open legs, he didn’t mind if she spoke out of turn like that other man had, so long ago.   
  
“I think it’s a price he’ll be happy to pay,” Lord Baelish said, “every King needs a Queen, and the King in the North needs a rich bride if his people are to make it through winter alive.”   
  
It took a moment for it to click.   
  
“Me? I’m to marry Jon Snow?” Alayne said, not quite sure if she believed it. Not sure if it wasn’t a dream, nor if was it the fog of her memories. When she was with her father things were bright and loud and all too much and sometimes she would fall into herself, deep into that pit of yearning where everything was happy and slow and the world was very far away. The world where she had a different father entirely, a world where she had a mother who looked just like her, and a big brother who was a king in his own right, a brother who was coming to save her...

  
“I always told you I’d give you Winterfell, didn’t I?” Her father said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her towards him. “You know me, Alayne. I am a man of my word.” 

* * *

  
  
She knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. She was merely dreaming. But in the soft blue light streaming through the windows onto his face, Jon Snow looked more beautiful than she ever could have imagined and Alayne was wonderstruck.

That night, when she’s forced to give up her virtue in her father’s solar, she closes her eyes and imagines Winterfell so clearly it’s as though she was there already. When she opens her eyes again, she look out the window and watches the snow fall. The maester said it would be the last snow of the winter, but Alayne knew that in the North she would see summer snows, and she was glad for that.

* * *

  
  
“Was he everything you hoped?” Myranda asked her the morning after the wedding.   
  
“Better,” Alayne said.

She was in love with Jon Snow already. She had been since the moment she’d heard his song, of that she was well aware, but last night his tender caresses had made her his completely. In his arms she had almost forgotten what her father had done to her. He made her forget so much, and almost remember something else, something just under the surface, something she wasn’t sure was real but something she was afraid to examine all the same.

Myranda raised an eyebrow, “he doesn’t come across such an excellent lover. Not to look at him.”

Alayne shrugged. “I was happily surprised.”

* * *

  
  
“For you,” Jon said as he laid a reel of red satin on her desk. He was smiling, proud of himself for the gift.   
  
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she ran her hands along the fine fabric, “but surely our funds could be better spent.”   
  
“The Maester told me it’s customary for a lord to bestow a gift upon his lady when he’s told that his wife is carrying his heir,” Jon explained, his voice defensive.   
  
“Well, if it’s for tradition…” Alayne looked up into his eyes and smile, “thank you, Jon.”   
  
Alayne had learned to smile brightly in the Eyrie but in truth it took everything in her to get out of bed in the morning. She was lively and fun and she’d had learn the traps to lay to make men fall at her feet. Her husband had not been the first man she’d had to take into her bed, but with him she didn’t feel numb. Jon Snow was so easy to love.   
  
“You’re welcome,” Jon said, his grin almost boyish as he scratched the back of his neck.   
  
“I should probably wait to make a dress until after the baby’s born and I’m not so fat.”   
  
“You’re not. Fat, I mean.”   
  
Alayne placed her hands on her swollen stomach and raised an eyebrow.   
  
“Maybe a little plump,” Jon conceded.   
  
A moment of silence passed between them as it often did. She could tell he was thinking, and sometimes his thoughts were hard to get out of him.

(“I’m not the man I once was,” Jon told once her, by way of explanation for why he wasn’t always in the here and now.

“And what man is that? A hero? The prince that was promised?”   
  
“No, I never was that man. I’ve just changed.”   
  
“I like you like this just fine.”)   
  
“When I was at the wall, just after I’d come back, a man told me a story about his cloak. It had gone up in flames, burned in this deception… anyway, his name was Mance and he was a king once. He was the last of his people, but they’re all dead now. But before that his wife had died too — in the birthing bed, and I think he more or less gave up his resolve after that… he was a dead man walking…”   
  
Jon paused again and Alayne wondered if Jon was telling her an old story or sharing his fears. So much of their life was that, the old and the new. Time was going around and around a flat circle, and sometimes Alayne wasn’t sure how much of them were in the here and now and how much were the ghosts of Winterfell’s past, destined to repeat the same sins again and again. Jon’s hand laid down on the red silk and Alayne reached her hand out and took it, listening intently.   
  
“He took a pretty bad blow. The night before he died, he kept going on about that cloak. A black cloak of the night’s watch with red silk sewn into it. He was about to die back then too, but some wildling woman took him in. The silk must have washed up ashore somewhere, or something, and it was the most precious thing she owned. And she gave it up just to keep him warm.”   
  
Jon had been looking down, but when he finished he caught her eye again.   
  
“I’d give up all of my most precious possessions to keep the two of you just a little bit warmer,” Jon said.   
  
The world hadn’t been kind to either of them. Sometimes Alayne felt as though Jon had stolen her from her grave and brought home a corpse bride. If she was certain of anything, it was that only his kiss could have awoken her. But even when he’d given her life, she tasted death on his lips too. It pained her that her love wasn’t strong enough to bring him back from the dead, as he had done to her. She wanted to breathe you’re not alone anymore against his skin as they made love until he believed it.

Despite her fears, when she leaned over and kissed her husband, Alayne tasted only spring. 

* * *

  
Alayne had allowed herself to wander beyond the castle with Ghost in tow. Only a few months had passed since she’d returned to Winterfell but she was a quick study and took to the place easily. She was itching to explore further, to commit the entirety of her new home to memory. The land was vast and she explored it in the warm sun for hours, occasionally running her hand through Ghost’s soft fur.   
  
When she returned, she sang to herself as she brushed Ghost’s coat out in the courtyard.   
  
She turned her head and there was Jon, just watching her.   
  
A chill ran through her and she forced a smile. She was his lady wife and he was entitled to look upon her whenever he so wished, but usually his gaze was soft. Now it was as though he was looking for something — or rather, somebody else.   
  
Had there been another? He’d never chosen her, and though the men of the night’s watch took no wives her husband was handsome and strong and kind. There were wildling women, of course, and she’d heard the tale of the Dragon Queen. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. It had been no time at all but this man already held her heart in his hands.

Alayne gulped when she met his eye.   
  
“I had guards go looking for you, they’re probably still out there,” he said at last.   
  
Sansa flinched at the reproach, even though Jon’s voice was gentle. She had been on edge ever since he’d called out another woman’s name in the Godswood. His hands had been just as eager but when they made love he was far away.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Alayne said. “I didn’t mean to be gone so long. The queen probably shouldn’t go off wandering the countryside.”   
  
“It’s alright. Ghost’ll keep you safe. I just worried you’d get lost… but you seem to know your way around well enough.”   
  
Something deep inside her screamed HE KNOWS and her muscles tensed, but what he knew she couldn’t be certain.   
  
She was Alayne.   
  
She was Alayne, and that’s all she ever was. 

* * *

Sometimes the tide of memories came crashing back, lapping against the edges of her sanity.   
  
Sansa was the phantom who lived inside her, trapped deep down with all the other ghosts she held onto.   
  
But in order to survive she had built a new soul. She was another girl now. A braver girl, one who laughed more easily and new how to make do. Sansa was weak and afraid, and she had to stay dead.  

For a long time Alayne stared at herself in the looking glass above her vanity. She needed to dye her hair soon. The red was shining through again, and when it did the ghosts wouldn’t leave her alone, howling like wolves and pulling at her skirts. She was never sure if they meant to eat her alive or lead her to freedom.

Her lord husband knocked at the door. Now that her stomach was swollen and she was nearing her seventh month, Jon refrained from taking his marriage rights, but he still liked having a warm body next to him.  
  
Alayne pulled herself away from her reflection and answered the door. She’d rather fall asleep in his arms than be buried below them in the crypts, and that’s where Sansa Stark had to stay if either of them were to survive. 

* * *

  
When Alayne fell asleep she dreamt she was Sansa again. But this time everything was brighter, and she was here at Winterfell. She was surrounded by a family who loved her, and the castle was teeming with life. She imagined what Winterfell looked like if it had never been burnt, when food was plenty. It was just a dream, but, oh, what a wonderful dream it was...


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa is the garden he builds the castle around. New life grows inside her body and they must think of the future, their future. Beneath them lay the ruins of everything that came before, things that have to be forgotten if they were to survive. Before Jon had brought his new wife home with him, when he’d returned from war that first time, Jon had felt like he’d left one hell only to arrive at the next, but together they were making this a home. It felt like Winterfell again.

 

 _I could be happy here again, it could be like when I was a child_ , Jon thought, looking over at his wife. Flashes had come to him as he dreamed of the two of them living a whole life here, growing old, having children who grew old.

 

She sat doing her needlework by the father. Things were easy now. Routine hadn’t yet swallowed up passion, but it comforted him all the same. They had navigated their way out of the mountains of the Vale through winding rivers of the Trident and found their way home to the North.

 

Her hair shone red in the candlelight, but that was just a trick of the light. Jon had fallen for it before.

 

 _Alayne. Her name is Alayne,_ he reminded himself once more.

 

Except Jon couldn’t help but think his wife belonged here, in the Lord’s solar, far more than he ever could. He was stuck because he could not be certain. With her he was reminded of his youth, but his mind wasn’t exactly easy to sort through. Death had devastated him more than once and he was loathe to let it claim their happiness.

 

“Alayne,” he said aloud, reminding himself.

 

She smiled up at him, not stopping her skilled hands.

 

“What are you sewing tonight?” Jon asked.

 

“Just a blanket for our son,” Alayne answered, holding the grey quilt up for him. In the middle was the half finished head of a white direwolf. Jon was always amazed at what Alayne’s long fingers could do with a needle and a piece of thread.

 

“You think we’ll have a son?”

 

“I think so. The maester said it’s difficult to tell with the way I’m carrying, but I think a boy. The future Lord of Winterfell.”

 

“Or perhaps we’ll have a little girl, one as beautiful as you,” Jon said. He still did his best to flirt with his wife, to pay her little compliments. Women liked that. Someone had told him that once, but that was too long time ago to remember now.

 

“People always tell me I’m beautiful,” Alayne said, “but it’s been a long time since I _felt_ it. Not since I was a little girl myself...”

 

Jon thought she was going to continue, but she stopped there. She turned back to her needlework. The look on her face was impenetrable.

 

There were two Alayne’s -- there was the Alayne who liked to sing, who charmed his bannermen, the bastard girl who’d turned down half a dozen men’s marriage proposals in the Vale. That Alayne liked wildflowers and whispered her secrets into his ear like he was the most trustworthy man on earth. But then there was the other Alayne. This Alayne was unknowable. She withdrew into herself, leaving Jon alone to wonder who she was.

 

Frustration brewed beneath the surface as he stared at her. He didn’t want to challenge her again, but he could no longer embrace the silence, he wanted to scream her name. He’d wanted it for months. He wasn’t the man he’d been the last time Sansa Stark had seen him. He could keep her secret. He was not besieged by an ideal of honour. He would love her still. He would kiss her where it hurt and stand by her till the end.

 

This is why he’d come back from the dead, this is why he hadn’t died in the war.

 

Everyone he loved was gone. Yet the two of them had survived. That meant something. He’d always been his own worst enemy, and he’s well aware it will only bring him misery, but he _has to know_.

 

“Tell me,” Jon blurts out. Their conversation had died, but he looked at her with intense eyes and he saw her swallow down her nerves.

 

 _You can tell me anything_ , he wanted to say. _I will love you anyway._

 

He wanted so desperately to comfort her from whatever Petyr Baelish had done to make her own brother a stranger to her. He wanted to kill the man who’d twisted her memory so far it had become as malformed as his. All this time his sister had been playing pretend in the Eyrie, while he’d been pretending to be a King. Something far more insidious than death was rotting inside his wife and he wanted to save both of them from it.  

 

“Tell you what?”

 

“What it was like, when you were a little girl. When you thought you were beautiful.”

 

Alayne smiled sadly, and in a moment even that faded from her face. “I’ve told you before, I don’t really like to think of the past.”

 

Alayne may have run from the Eyrie, but her head was still up there with it in the clouds. Her eyes fluttered shut. Jon couldn’t be sure if she was pretending to be tired or if she was thinking back on what had come before.

 

There had been so much misery, so much suffering. In the thick of it he’d practically forgotten he’d had a heart. He had grown so cold but he needed to do his duty. The world was too much for one man to balance on his shoulders. And now that he was free to do so, he was following his heart. His heart may have led him somewhere beyond it was permitted, but he would not turn away. Would she?

 

“I didn’t used to be so kind, My Lord. I was courteous, for sure, not rude, but I thought beauty meant I was better than the other girls. I knew I was beautiful and I thought it made me good. I didn’t realize then what it meant to be beautiful. That it can be a weapon… but more often, that it’s poison. That it gives men a reason to love you but --” she stopped, and finally looked up into Jon’s eyes. “But that it wasn’t love at all. Just desire.”

 

Jon knew what men were capable of. He had seen things during the war. The wildling women had never been safe, they had been used indiscriminately as the whores of southern armies. Jon hadn’t been able to tame them either. Davos had told him that Stannis would have had the men hanged. But there was a reason Stannis Baratheon, the one true king or so he had called himself, was dead in the snow. Jon needed those men to save everyone, and women paid the price of their war, as they so often did.

 

Sometimes Alayne acted as though he had truly been the man in those songs she sang, but he was no saint.

 

“I must admit, I was a bit breathless at the sight of you as well.”

 

He meant to say _I’m no different_. But her face twists into a grin and the sweet and girlish Alayne is back again.

 

“I suppose beauty isn’t all that bad, then.”

 

He wanted to push it further, but Alayne gets up to go to bed and Jon loses his nerve. He knew who she was, and yet he was no better at resisting her than he was when he’d thought them newly wedded strangers. In bed, Sansa’s wolf frees itself.  And when Jon was inside of her, it never did feel like a lie.

 

* * *

 

 

He saw her in the godswood again, this time thick with child. In the dark shade of the weirwood he saw only shadows on Alayne’s face, her hair darker than it had ever been, an inky black. He did not mean to spy on his wife, not even with what he suspected, but he had overheard her handmaiden discussing a need for hair dye with the steward.

 

Now that he’d seen past the disguise he could never see Alayne anymore. She was always Sansa, and he supposed he’d always been damned but he loved her all the  more for it.

 

As he approached her, he looked down at the black pool and was struck by their reflection. They looked so familiar, even with Sansa’s hair dark. The memory was nothing he’d experienced, he was sure of that. It was a blood memory that coursed through his veins, it was history repeating itself. Their father had always told them that a man could not lie in front of the heart tree. Jon had just thought it was a crime against the Gods, what one shouldn’t do, but it was more than sacrilege. The trees showed them things, this sacred ground held onto the memories long forgotten. He could not help but be true in front of it.

 

Not for the first time, Jon wondered what it had been like for his father when he returned from his war. Jon remembered a long face much like his own.

 

“I thought you wouldn't be back till tomorrow,” Sansa said, her words coming out in a rush. She clutched her stomach and closed her eyes. The baby must be kicking again, the creature that grew inside her seemed to love to torture his wife. “And… and… how were the Karstarks and the Thenns, My Lord?”

 

“Surprisingly peaceful.”

 

“Good... good.”

 

“I keep finding you here. I don’t mean to.”

 

“I was praying, My Lord. For you and for the babe and for Winterfell --”

 

“Not to the seven?” Jon asked, his voice colder than before. Perhaps today he’d be sure enough to press her again.

 

It was pure agony. He knew and he couldn’t unknow. He’d tried, but he doesn’t want to forget again. After so long, pieces of his memory were finally coming back and he wasn’t sure if he should be thankful for that. She was making him feel again. He couldn’t keep his love inside, it didn’t matter who she was, it was flowing out, changing him.

 

“If our child is to take your Gods then I suppose I should take them too,” she said, keeping her gaze on his. She had practiced that line, of that he was sure. A practiced smile came onto her face as well. “Your son is kicking again, if you want to feel him,” she told him, grabbing his hand and placing it on her stomach.

 

He felt the child that was half of him and half of her, and his lips found hers.

 

For so long Jon had let everyone they loved and lost be ghosts, which encircled him along with the fog that kept him from sleeping right. He’d tried to set them free, to give them allto the wind. But that had been before he’d known who his wife truly was. Now he knew what he had to do. They needed to turn their memories into stone, they needed to write down the history, they needed to remember. He needed more than what the weirwoods could give him.

 

And so here they were, again.

 

“Sansa,” he said again, and this time she doesn’t feign confusion.

 

Sansa’s hands tremble at her side.

 

“Just between us,” he said, “a secret.”

 

He would drop to his knees if he had to. Jon can feel the ghosts in these woods with them, but he can’t know them, not like she can. He needs her to guide him, to help him remember.

 

But tears welled in Sansa’s eyes and Jon’s heart filled with regret — and with love, always with love.

 

“Why did you give me that silk if you were just going to do this?” she asked, looking at the ground. This was not practiced. “You don’t have to do this. You’re ruining everything.”

 

“I want to remember,” Jon’s voice was desperate. He wanted to reclaim his past, to rule the North in the name of House Stark. The old gods sent him his sister. If the old kings of winter down in the crypts objected, they said nothing. Sometimes Jon swore a voice whispered to him in the godswood, from the old weary face on the heart tree. It wanted them to be whole again too.

 

“Dinner should be held soon. You should take a bath and dress,” Sansa said. She left him behind again, feeling the fool for hoping for different results with the same solution.

  


* * *

 

  


When Jon died he became something so much worse than a ghost. The rest of the family may haunt them, but he was a hero in a song. He was mythic and valiant and terrible. They cut out his weaknesses and held up whatever man they wanted to see. It was already happening. He seemed to fade, but the myth of Jon Snow grew louder. He’d even heard Sansa singing his name half a dozen times, he’d heard her hum it under her breath more times than he could count.

 

This felt like a love story, but Jon knew enough of the world to know that songs were just pretty words and were not to be believed. They ran away together, but if he mistepped it would be nothing for her to leave him behind. She wanted the man from the songs, she wanted Winterfell, she wanted their baby. But she did not want to be Sansa Stark.

 

He couldn’t be alone in this kingdom anymore, not after he tasted her kiss.

 

So he went back to pretending.

 

A fortnight later, he was had been laying in bed, unable to sleep and staring out the window. He hadn’t dared move, lest he wake his slumbering wife. But she had woken on her own, and rose from the bed. Or perhaps she had only been pretending to sleep as well. He didn’t really know her, after all, even if he did know her true name. They had both become somebody new.

 

She walked to the window and looked out out of the newly tempered glass.

 

The moon bathed her beautiful face in light. She was sad again, sleepless, drifting, that much was clear. He knew why in the broadest of streaks, but he wanted to know it all. He wanted a lot of things he’d never have. Things were not easy between them when you moved past their bodies and into the crux of the matter. They were both lying to each other, and to themselves too.

 

Sansa’s hands rubbed her stomach. She sighed and leaned her forehead against the glass.

 

She was the last keeper of the dismal history of House Stark and she was keeping it behind lock and key. But she carried it’s future too. She was far too delicate, too important, too beloved, to be pushed any further.

 

Jon forced a yawn and shuffles under the furs. “Come back to bed,” Jon said. She nodded and did as he bid. Alayne Stone was ever the obedient wife. She was more than any man could hope for. Jon pulled her into the crook of his arm and brushed his lips across her forehead. “Tell me what saddens you, My Lady.”

 

“When women are with child sometimes they just cry,” Sansa said.

 

One of Jon’s hands drifted down to Sansa’s stomach, gently running his hands along the linen of her shift. Beneath it he could feel their baby kicking. He pulled her closer.

 

“It’s because there’s a full moon,” Jon said. “And he’s a Stark, isn’t he?”

 

“A full moon?” Sansa said.

 

“He’s howling in there, aching to come out and haunt the wolfswood with Ghost.”

 

 _And you were too,_ Jon thought. _You have been, all this time._ Jon may have died but the wolf inside him never had. He’d only been blocking out the sounds of his sister’s cries, but she was a ferocious thing. He wondered how he’d missed it for so long.

 

Sansa laughed. “I hadn’t noticed the moon.”

 

“What were you looking at, then?”

 

“Nothing… I just feel hot. And the glass was cool.”

 

A chill ran through him. His wife was almost due, it would only be another moon before their first child was born, and the birthing bed was a tricky place. He brought the back of his hand to Sansa’s forehead. It only made his heart beat faster when he felt how warm she was.

 

“I’m going to fetch the maester,” Jon said, gently disentangling from him.

 

“Why?”

 

“Just… just … to make sure it’s okay.”

 

“I’m fine,” she said, clinging to him, but the faraway look in her eyes did nothing to convince him.

 

It felt overwhelmingly urgent. He left her behind and pulled his breeches back on, and pulled his cloak over his naked torso.

 

He looked back over his shoulder before he left, his heart already full of grief. He could not lose her. He could not do this alone.

 

“Don’t worry, father. It will be fine,” Sansa said, her smile dreamy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expanded this last chapter a bit to make it a bit more clear. To Jen/Tubbylita -- it's not Petyr Baelish's baby.

Alayne closed her eyes and she imagined the baby growing inside her. She’d imagined her child hundreds of times now, the image of him is clearer in her mind than any of her true memories. Father had left her all alone, maybe to tell mother, or to get Jon.  _ Jon _ , she thought with a smile. The baby will look like Jon, with thick black hair and his gray eyes. The baby will have to look like a Stark and not a Tully, though she forgets why now. Her entire body ached, pulsing outward from her stomach. Alayne felt like she was about to split in two, like she was going to be broken by the one thing she wants more than anything.

 

Her breaths grew more and more shallow but the pain faded away the clearer the picture became in her mind. 

 

She imagined a summer day in the clearing of the Godswood. The air was warm against her skin, and she and Jon are leaning back against the weirwood tree. There was a little girl with dark hair and grey eyes in her arms, and by the edge of the black pool a boy with auburn curls. She walked over to him, to see what he’s doing. The little boy droped the stick he was playing with and grabbed her wrist protectively, “it’s not safe,” he warns her, as though he isn’t a child. 

 

“Sansa,” Jon calls, and Sansa looks back at the weirwood tree. Sansa walks to him and sits down in his lap with a little sigh.

 

Suddenly things became less fuzzy, and she realized it’s not Jon at all, but her father. Her true father, the one she gave up so she could survive in the Vale, the one who loved her and did his best to protect her. The father she’d watched die, the father she’d helped the Lannisters murder. Sansa was so happy to see him again, but she despite her joy she couldn’t stop the tears that began to fall.

 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Father asked

 

“It’s not fair,” Sansa said.

 

“Robb is older than you, and he knows how to swim,” Father said gently, patting her on the head, as though that was the end of it.

 

But Sansa couldn’t control her weeping, and she began to ache again. The pain in the here and now took her father’s embrace away. She remembered the first time she ached like this. She hurt from being beaten, but this was different. Back then she felt as though her womb was going to fall out, but instead she’d bled while she slept. Getting her moonsblood had been the curse that led to almost everything that’s happened since, but the queen acted like it was something to be celebrated. 

 

There’s been a lot of pain since the first time she bled. 

 

Another father came to her then, one she’d been trying to put behind her since she’d run from the Vale. 

 

“My sweet girl,” he whispered, pulling her into his lap. She doesn’t have the strength to fight him, but she supposed it didn’t matter anyway. Alayne was used to being touched by men by now. 

 

She was a pretty bastard girl and men groped her without any consequence as soon as she is out of her father’s sight. But her father’s touches are different. Alayne went slack in his arms, she closed her eyes as she undresses, acquiescing to whatever he wants. 

 

He told her to do things, and she does them. Numbing herself and emptying her mind of thoughts never made it go by any faster, but it makes it easier to live with when she’d put her dress back on and was trying to sleep. 

 

It hurt too, the first time Petyr pushed open her legs and sunk himself into her, just like it did now. Alayne ached for days after, the pain made even worse when she remembered what had happened. 

 

This time when she pushes the thoughts from her mind, it works better than ever before. The pain is more than that, enough to numb her. 

 

“Sweet girl,” she heard again, but this time she feels Jon’s weight on top of her. This wasn’t a dream, none of them are, they’re memories. She’s a newlywed and she’s just escaped the weight of Littlefinger. Jon is inside her and she’s close to whimpering out his name, but those words on his lips bring her back to the Eyrie and her stolen childhood. 

 

“Don’t,” she shuddered out, “don’t call me that.”

 

Her body doesn’t remember the trauma, but her mind is reeling as she comes. 

 

That time hurt worse than any of the rest. Jon was perfect, he was her saviour, he was the one bards wrote songs about. He had brought her home and made her a person again. He couldn’t be marred by the image of Littlefinger’s twisted grin. She retreated into herself, numbing herself so she wouldn’t remember it. 

 

Jon’s arms enveloped her. “What should I call you then?”

 

_ Sansa _ , Alayne thought, but she can’t remember if she’d thought it then or if she’s thinking it now. 

 

“Alayne,” she instructed him.

 

“What if I want a name just I can call you?” he asked. He was playing with her hair, curling it around his finger. His lips grazed her jaw. She was well aware that he was trying to comfort her, and she knew she should be grateful that she was lucky enough to have found such a wonderful husband, and yet she felt disgusted by his touch. She kept still, she didn’t want this to mar his high opinion of her.

 

“Calling me your lady wife should do, it does for everyone else,” Alayne replied, her voice stiff. She wanted all of the pain to roll off of her, but she’d been rebuilt for survival, not for sweetness.

 

His arms around her didn’t ease her mind nor save her from the phantom pain. She had lost so much and even winning the fairytale prince of her childhood dreams couldn’t fix her. He couldn’t know how broken she was. His love was the only thing keeping her tied down to this world...

 

“Alayne,” a voice called out.

 

“Alayne, wake up,” another voice called out, this one she recognizes as Jon’s. 

 

The concern in his voice makes her feel warm. He hadn’t saved her in the end, it seemed that nobody could, but he wanted to and that meant  _ something _ . The thought of him slashing Longclaw through her father’s chest made her want to cry in joy and anguish at the same time. 

 

It wasn’t all bad. Petyr kept her safe, hadn’t he? He’d saved her from the Lannisters, he’d killed Joffrey, he promised her he’d bring her home, and here she was. Worse for wear, but alive within the walls of Winterfell.

 

“It’s too early,” she heard Jon nearly growl in a hushed tone. She heard screaming and it took a second, but she realized that it was her own. 

 

“There’s no stopping it, not with this much blood.”

 

“It’s _too early,”_ Jon pressed. 

 

“You really should leave,” the other voice said, “it’s not proper for the father to see this, I have her handmaidens —”

 

“I’m not leaving her,” Jon said, his voice full of disgust, “not when she’s like this.”

 

Sansa feels her brother grab her hand, and she squeezed back as best she can.  _ It’s okay _ , she wanted to say. She could manage this pain, but hearing him worry makes it impossible to bear.

 

“Alayne, you need to push,” came the other voice. 

 

Pushing brings some relief from the pain. It’s natural, it’s what her body was made for. Screaming helps even more, as does gripping Jon’s hand tightly. 

 

She remembered whispered prayers in the Godswood. She remembered thinking  _ my brother will kill you all _ . She remembers how she’d almost stopped existing when she found out Robb had died. 

 

“You must be Alayne all the time,” she heard her father whisper. And she has been. She’s been so good. She stayed alive, nobody found her in the mountains except for her brother. Not the brother she’d prayed for, but he was just as brave, and she’d grown to love him more than anyone.

 

“Push,” the voice came again, and she can imagine a maester there with Jon, even if she can’t see it. She pushed and pushed and suddenly the pain is gone and everything goes black. 

 

She’s still tired when she comes to. The room was spinning around her. She lifted her head weakly, and looked around. Their marriage bed is soaked in blood, and the baby is gone. Her eyes flicked to the side and she looksed for Jon but she just finds the maester. She wants to scream, but her mouth is so dry she can’t make words come out. 

 

“Fetch the King,” the maester called across the room when he notices she’s woken. She can’t recall his name, she just knows he’s not the one who should be there. She wondered what fate befell Maester Luwin, if he’d been burned along with Bran and Rickon. One of her handmaidens left the room to get Jon.

 

Tears ran down her cheeks but she was too tired to wipe them away. She knows what’s coming, she knows she’s done this to herself. Because she wasn’t Alayne, was she? She had known what she was doing, known that it was frowned upon by Gods and men, and still she’d pushed. She’d killed her baby. 

 

The maester smiled sadly, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t face it. In her weakest moments she had prayed for the baby inside of her to die. Better a miscarriage or a still birth than having to look at a baby who grew up to look like Petyr. She had prayed in the godswood every day, hoping that it would be Jon’s son, that she could finally escape the Mountain. And she had prayed that if it was not, that the Gods would not make her endure motherhood. She had hoped in vain that it would be Jon’s, that they could make a family together, that they could be  _ happy _ . 

 

And then, to her great surprise, she heard a baby’s crying in the other room. “You have a son,” the maester said. 

 

The other handmaiden came back into the room with a baby in her arms. He was swaddled in a woolen blanket. He had little hair, but what he had was as black as Jon’s. His eyes were Tully blue, and his screams were all Arya. He was small and frail, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him despite the wailing. Still the Maester’s face was tense. 

 

_ Oh _ , Sansa realizes.It wasn’t her son who would pay the price for her transgressions, it was her. 

 

Jon burst through the doors. He’d been crying, Sansa could tell from his puffy bloodshot eyes. But the King in the North couldn’t cry in front of his subjects, not even if his wife was bleeding out on the birthing bed.

 

“You’re awake,” Jon said, his face breaking out into the biggest smile Sansa had ever seen. He rushed to her side, but the maester holds up a hand in protest. “She’s alright, isn’t she?”

 

“She lost a lot of blood,” the maester said. “But she did wake up. She needs to eat and drink, and we need to watch to make sure she doesn’t bleed anymore. She can’t stand to lose any more blood. Childbirth is tricky, and anything could happen, but she’s made it through the worst.”

 

Jon leaned down and kisses her cheek. He grabbed her hand. Sansa can feel just how happy he is, how relieved.  _ He loves me _ , she thought,  _ and I’m going to be okay _ . It seemed there would be no consequences for her sins. She would be loved by her husband, have a healthy baby and live to see it. She could grow old here beside him, they could rebuild Winterfell. The maester brought her food and one of her handmaidens fed her. Jon stayed there all the while, not letting go of her hand. She drank spring water infused with herbs and eat the mutton stew a kitchen maid brought her and she thought of how easy it would all be, once she was better. When she fell asleep she sees how beautiful it could all be.

 

But when she woke she remembered that there was a price to pay.

 

Jon was still beside her. He knew, doesn’t he? She tried to forget what had happened in the Godswood, but he’d known for awhile. She could’t lie to him, not anymore. She didn’t deserve to have his love on top of everything else, not when she lied to get it.

 

“Leave us,” Sansa rasped out to the nurse and maester who sit surrounding her. 

 

Sansa closed her eyes and breaths out.

 

“You were right, Jon. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying —”

 

Jon gripped her hand, “save your voice, you don’t have to tell me anything right now. Just rest. I can’t do any of this without you.”

 

The two of them were silent for a long time. 

 

“Do you want to hold your son?” he asked. 

 

Alayne nodded. Jon passed her the baby. He fit so perfectly in her arms. “Does he have a name?”

 

Jon shook his head. “I wanted you to wake first. You were out for a long time, my love. I wanted you to…”

 

“Ned,” Alayne said, “let’s name him after your father?”

 

“Not your father?” Jon asked.

 

Alayne looked down at the baby. Her son. He was so beautiful. He was all hers and Jon’s. He did not look anything like Petyr. The gods had answered her prayers. 

 

“No. Let’s leave all that behind us.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just remade a tumblr for jonsa-ing, follow me at bravegentlestrong.tumblr.com!


End file.
